Over 2,000 people gathered at Montreal’s Palais des Congrès April 30 and May 1 for the Symposium on Child and Youth Trauma, united by a shared mission – to better understand trauma and help children and families recover from it.
Since 2018, this bilingual conference brings together professionals from mental health, medical and wellness fields to improve trauma services for children, including Indigenous youth.
Event organizer Delphine Collin-Vézina, the Director of the Canadian Consortium on Child and Youth Trauma, proposed adaptive strategies to trauma responses.
“We often think about the usual responses of ‘fight or flight’ when facing danger or difficult situations,” Collin-Vézina said. “But in that talk, I wanted to expand those notions to demonstrate that for human beings, we have a range of strategies to adjust to things that are unbearable.
“If a person is presenting with dysregulated states or difficult behaviours, there’s probably a trauma history behind that,” she continued. “My main message was that there are survival tools behind those strategies.”
Collin-Vézina thinks the data speaks volumes. Research by Tracie Afifi at the University of Manitoba shows that 32% of Canadians report having experienced physical or sexual abuse, or exposure to domestic violence in childhood.
“And it doesn’t account for other forms of trauma, such as neglect or psychological violence that we know are extremely damaging for the development of children,” Collin-Vézina stated. “Unfortunately, it is very common and something we need to acknowledge.”
The symposium doesn’t shy away from difficult truths, she emphasized. Each year, the event spotlights intergenerational trauma rooted in colonial policies against Indigenous communities.
“Every year we invite speakers to make sure that this is being recognized,” she said. “We hope that this symposium is a way to amplify their voices.”
She pointed to the First Nations Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect as a tool to help understand measures Canadian governments imposed on Indigenous people.
“The study found First Nations children are 3.6 times more likely to be investigated compared to non-Indigenous children,” she noted.
Several Cree participants attended the symposium to learn and share practices that will better support youth in Eeyou Istchee.
Tyler Bush, from Ouje-Bougoumou and a staff member at the youth healing centre in Mistissini, told CBC radio that the event provides a unique opportunity to connect with other professionals, share culturally grounded approaches to healing, and gain deeper insights into trauma-informed care.
“I know how to teach the kids, and how to cope with their trauma,” Bush said. “But there are new ways. I attended the trauma symposium to learn experiences of other people and bring them back to our community.”